Q. “What is the meaning of the verse Matthew 18:18?” A. The verse is, “Verily I say unto you, What things soever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and what things soever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” Sim ply, it is this — if you believe, your sins are forgiven; if you are unbeliev ing, your sins are not forgiven. It is in that sense that we understand Mat thew 18:18. No man, on his own pre rogative, can say that he, by his own spiritual power, is endowed with au thority to forgive sins. And, also to say, that when he does this act of forgiveness, that those in heaven re cord the way that he has indicated. Q . Modesto, California. “Why arerCt the four beast kings of Daniel 7:4-7 accept ed as four individual kings as verse 17 so clearly declares?” A* Now when we drop down to verse 17 and read of the four beasts or four kings — may we say that four kings or kingdoms could be equally used, the panelist believes, here in these pas sages. It is true that in connection with the first of the world empires, that of Nebuchadnezzar, he was in reality the great king of that particular dy nasty, and later on there were kings of the Medo-Persian Empire. These are four kingdoms, not individual kings, and I feel that this is where the confusion comes in connection with this one who has written this question. We think of the first two kings,
Nebuchadnezzar, the great king of the Babylonian Empire and Cyrus the Great, king of the Medo-Persian Em pire. Then along came Alexander the Great, king of the Grecian Empire. These were the outstanding kingdoms, but it was not limited to them, his torically. The fourth kingdom, of course, is the great Roman Empire. It is the world kingdoms that are in cluded here and not just the kings. Q . Spokane, Washington. “Do you think that the Apostle Paul suggests celibacy in I Corinthians 7:7, 8?” A. Perhaps I should do two things: first, define celibacy and then read the portion of Scripture to which the writ er refers. Celibacy is the position of one who remains unmarried. I Corinthians 7:7 reads, “Yet I would that all men were even as myself. Howbeit each man hath his own gift from God, one after his manner and another after that.” You have to take a passage like I Corinthians 7 and re late it to the given situation at that time. What Paul was saying was that in certain situations in Corinth, where there were special difficulties of great immorality, he would suggest that Christian workers would not marry be cause unmarried men and women could then give themselves more whol ly to the work of the Lord in combat ting the current conditions of sin. As a norm for the human race;, the Apostle Paul never suggested, nor did he ever intimate celibacy as the normal life. 16
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